The guest
Alex Gladstein: Chief Strategy Officer at the Human Rights Foundation and the Oslo Freedom Forum. He focuses on how Bitcoin and encryption can empower people living under authoritarian regimes.
What this episode covers
Alex Gladstein joins Lex Fridman to connect human rights with money, information, and politics. He frames negative rights (liberties) as the foundation of free societies and argues that authoritarian regimes (53% of the world's population) commit fraud by faking entitlements while denying liberties. The bulk of the conversation makes the case for Bitcoin as both a sovereign, debasement-proof savings account and an unstoppable, sanctions-resistant payments network for the roughly 87% of people without a stable reserve currency. Gladstein's central thesis is the 'Trojan horse': greedy actors, dictators, and corporations adopt Bitcoin for profit ('number go up') and unwittingly spread a freedom tool ('freedom go up'). They also debate AI surveillance, encryption, federated social media, journalism, and the meaning of freedom.
Recommended on this episode
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Signal
Signal Foundation
“you should try to be onboarding more and more of your conversations onto signal”
“it's fantastic that tens of millions of people are downloading signal and using it um you should try to be onboarding more and more of your conversations onto signal”— Alex Gladstein
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Brave
Brave Software
“it's a great browser um i think it's my favorite browser at this point”
“people should check out brave it's a great browser um i think it's my favorite browser at this point”— Lex Fridman
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Moon wallet
Moon
“there are now mobile wallets that are so slick”
“there are now mobile wallets that are so slick there's one called moon m-u-n wallet from a team in argentina”— Alex Gladstein
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Blue Wallet
BlueWallet
“the blue wallet is a good one for people to check out”
“whether it's on an open source software wallet like the blue wallet is a good one for people to check out”— Alex Gladstein
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Sphinx
Sphinx
“it's worth checking out it's very like early days”
“it's called a tribal model or like tribes um which is this social environment being built on top of lightning um by uh an app called sphinx”— Alex Gladstein
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The Fear
Peter Godwin
“it is a riveting book i think everyone should read it”
“the fear was written by peter godwin it's about the systematic dismantling of zimbabwe under robert mugabe it is a riveting book i think everyone should read it”— Alex Gladstein
BookRecommendedISBN verified
The Man Without a Face
Masha Gessen
“incredible book about modern russia and putin just a masterpiece”
“the man without a face by masha gessen incredible book about modern russia and putin just a masterpiece”— Alex Gladstein
BookRecommendedISBN verified
The Mandibles
Lionel Shriver
“the mandibles i would highly recommend”
“a fiction book uh called the mandibles uh written by lionel shriver this one's good it's a good gift book it's funny it's dark it's witty”— Alex Gladstein
BookRecommendedISBN verified
The Internet of Money
Andreas Antonopoulos
“i just think this is an important one for people to start with”
“my portal into bitcoin was the internet of money by andreas antonopoulos i just think this is an important one for people to start with”— Alex Gladstein
BookRecommendedISBN verified
The Blocksize War
Jonathan Bier
“really good kind of like really important to understand”
“you should read the block size war which is a book on that you can get on amazon by jonathan beer really good kind of like really important to understand”— Alex Gladstein
BookRecommendedISBN verified
Saturday
Ian McEwan
“there's a really good book by ian mcewen called saturday”
“there's a really good book by ian mcewen called saturday a fiction book that takes place during i think 2003 it's really good”— Alex Gladstein
The guest's own work
BookBy the guestISBN verified
The Little Bitcoin Book
Alex Gladstein
“we wrote a book together it's called the little bitcoin book and i'm still proud of it it's 100 pages”— Alex Gladstein
Also referenced (named, not recommended)
MediaReferenced
V for Vendetta
James McTeigue
“so we would send in movies you know v for vendetta dubbed into spanish and people would sit inside their homes”— Alex Gladstein
ProductReferenced
Coldcard
Coinkite
“or a hardware wallet like cold card for example there's different ways to do this”— Alex Gladstein
ProductReferenced
Coinbase
Coinbase
“meaning they buy it on coinbase so coinbase where something like that you would put into into the custodial into the category like a bank”— Alex Gladstein
ProductReferenced
Mastodon
Mastodon
“i use mastodon for example mastodon is an example of a um federated social media”— Alex Gladstein
ProductReferenced
Keybase
Keybase
“even like key base which is kind of like a cool encrypted way to like have group chats um it just requires like a lot of your time”— Alex Gladstein
ProductReferenced
Raspberry Pi
Raspberry Pi Foundation
“you can run it on a raspberry pi with less than 150 bucks of equipment and that's so important”— Alex Gladstein
BookReferencedISBN verified
The Bitcoin Standard
Saifedean Ammous
“a lot of people mention sort of the bitcoin standard is the philosophical entry into the whole bitcoin world”— Lex Fridman
Big reveals from this episode
- Gladstein argues it is very hard to make a case that AI will be good for human rights, calling big-data analysis deeply authoritarian.
- He frames Bitcoin as a Trojan horse: 'number go up' (NGU) is the outer shell concealing 'freedom go up' (FGU) freedom technology.
- He claims no senior Ethereum engineer could tell him Ethereum's monetary policy, with mint estimates ranging from 100,000 to 2 million ETH.
- He says the capital of Bitcoin could easily be Lagos, not San Francisco, as the developing world adopts it out of necessity.
- He reveals Bitcoin nearly died during the block size war, surviving an attack by parties controlling 83% of the hash rate.
- He states the WMD justification for invading Iraq was a lie and argues the real reason was Saddam wanting to sell oil in euros, threatening the dollar.
- Despite being pro-Bitcoin, he and Lex urge the maximalist community to ease up on cult-like certainty because it signals 'scam.'
Worth remembering
- Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky's 'town square test': if you can publicly criticize your ruler without fear, you have free speech.
- A reliable authoritarianism litmus test is whether your country can safely hold a gay pride parade.
- About 1.3 billion people live under double- or triple-digit inflation across roughly 35 countries, not just Zimbabwe and Venezuela.
- Only 13% of humans live in a liberal democracy with property rights and a stable reserve currency.
- Bitcoin's 'number go up technology' is shorthand NGU; the hidden inner layer he calls FGU, freedom go up.
- Gladstein runs a full Bitcoin node at home on hardware costing under $150, like a Raspberry Pi.
- 'Proof of Keys Day' every January 3rd: users withdraw coins from exchanges to practice self-custody and prepare for a '6102' confiscation attack.
- An Afghan tech CEO, Roya Mahboob, paid female employees in Bitcoin in 2013 so male relatives could not steal their cash wages.
- Tens of millions joined Signal in January after Elon Musk tweeted about it and WhatsApp changed its data terms.
- Akon is criticized for helping whitewash Uganda's dictator by building a future city, contrasted with 1980s anti-apartheid celebrity activism.
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